Seester visit!

Yes, yes, "seester" is what my sisters and I frequently use instead of sister for each other. When we headed down to Cave Creek to see my son, we stayed overnight in Camp Verde. We liked the place so much that when we came back up I-17 and stopped to see my youngest sister we stayed at the same place: Distant Drums RV Resort in Camp Verde.

Just off the interstate, it is one of the nicest, cleanest places we have stayed. What would I change, not much at all. A little more shade but that's tough to come by in the region, and maybe a smoother turn into the entrance. Other than that it was a very nice place.

We stayed a couple of days, partly to catch up on laundry (again!) and relax a little but also to visit with my seester. Getting to her house is not something I'd enjoy in a car, even a jeep is a good idea! So, she came to us.

We visited at our RV for a while and then went to dinner over at Storytellers, a suberb little restaurant across the interstate at Cliff Castle Casino. Now casinos are notoriously noisy places and walking through the slot machine area to get to the restaurant I certainly would not disagree. But, immediately on entering Storytellers which is tucked into one side of the huge casino room, the noise vanishes! The internal setting is like a grotto, quiet little nooks where conversation is truly possible and many many restaurants have forgotten that people like to talk and visit over a meal.

We had a great visit ... my sisters (I have two) and I keep up with each other by phone and email although we are separated by enough distance we don't often see each other in person. I avoid as much as possible saying much about any of my living family online so not going to go into any details about the conversation or how her family is doing. I have no such hesitation about the long gone, after all I am a genealogist but I do draw the line at saying much about the living relatives.

We returned to Timmber Wolf after a very good meal only to find that her tire was going flat. To our very good fortune, our neighbors at the RV park were a very nice family from California, looking to resettle in nearby Prescott and they had the youth and enthusiasm needed to get her tire changed. I m truly glad we discovered this and had the help or she might have been stranded on he side of the road on the way home! Thank you to all the nice helpful people in this world who go out of their way to help others.

The next day we headed first to Flagstaff for a stop at a WalMart to pick up a few things. Known as the RV'ers friend by some, most WalMarts have parking lots us big rigs can get in and out of reasonably!

Then we headed north into the desert but that's another story.

Medical Digression

As briefly referred to in my last post, I began having problems back in Ohio with a swollen left foot and lower leg. The right was also swollen but no where near as much. I've had problems with the left leg for a while now primarily due to significant arthritis in the left hip joint. At first I just figured it was the lack of exercise and too much sitting so focused on trying to move around more often and get my foot up as much as I could.

It doesn't look too bad in this photo but the toes weren't at the little sausages point when it was taken. The skin would be all tight and stretched feeling and the ankle was too stuffed to move reasonably.

But all across Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado and into New Mexico and Arizona it persisted, as stubborn as can be. Not being near any of my own doctors we procrastinated going to an emergency center but by the time we reached Camp Verde, Arizona, we were both getting concerned about it.

My sister lives near there and so I called asking her about the quality of local possibilities and she was most encouraging about the Verde Valley Medical Center in Cottonwood. I have been in and out of that area much of my life so felt more comfortable there than some where totally strange so Sunday morning we showed up at the center.

The personnel were very nice and spent most of the morning running various tests. The x-ray went smoothly, making sure there was no hidden underlying injury to the foot or ankle.

The blood tests that followed were a bit more of a problem as my veins decided to go into hiding or something like that and refused to part with any amount of blood. Finally the lab worker used a pediatric needle and a syringe to scoop up my recalcitrant blood for three or four tests.

Not sure what all they were looking for but infection was one of them and as it turned out, they found nothing.

From there it was off to get an ultrasound of the veins to look for the other likely problem, a clot in one of the veins. My leg did not like some of the positions this required but good news, no clots.

What did it all come down to? None of the dangerous problems existed, no infection, no clots, no internal issues ... diagnosis? Probably mostly heat related and the best thing to do was try to exercise it some, keep it elevated as much as possible, stay hydrated, and take it easy.

So now I try to minimize how much I get in and out of the coach as that seems to aggravate the whole leg, spend time several times a day laying down to get the foot elevated enough and drink plenty of fluids. It also seems to help to simply sit and exercise the ankle and foot by moving them like one would rocking a chair or working a pump.

Final opinion of both the medical people and myself is that the hip replacement scheduled for August 23rd should help a lot both in clearing up issues but also in allowing exercise and such that are currently difficult.

A few more days in this hot area and then we move northwards hopefully into cooler weather!

PS, a note from some days later up in the northwest: the foot and ankle are a lot better, not all gone but much improved and seem to be slowly continuing to improve.

Slipping Southwards

So Friday morning we headed southwards starting out on Parker Road and going somewhat south of town before swinging over to I-25. It's a pretty drive with a lot of scenery but even that acquires a sort of sameness after a while.

We stopped at a rest area at El Moro which had a good view eastwards out towards the plains of Colorado with the mountains behind us to the west. We stopped at the next exit to fuel up where the stupid Shell station made us swipe and fill twice instead of doing it all at once.

At that same exit, trying to avoid the same old same old of chain fast foods we went to Tequila's Family Style Mexican Restaurant at Exit 11 which is technically Starkville but pretty much part of Trinidad. South of Raton, New Mexico, at the Thaxton Rest Area, we stopped for a bit of leg stretching and a good thing too! Before Geoff could even get out of the coach, a storm swept in with rough winds and pounding rain mixed with hail! A couple of cars already there decided not to leave yet and several more including a couple of campers and a pickup pulling a boat pulled in shortly to wait out the storm.

There were lots of RV's, campers of all sorts, boats and so forth in several combinations out on the highways and clogging the truck stops but then it's 4th of July weekend so not a bit surprising. We made the switch to I-40 at Albuquerque and shortly past the city we stopped overnight at a Flying J truck stop rather than try to find an RV park.

What's the difference? At an RV Park you generally can get water, sewer, and electric hookups and they mostly have rules about being quiet past a certain time of night. This means you an run your air conditioning and get a better night's sleep in the cool and quiet. At a truck stop, you're parked in a row with other RV's and sometimes trucks and they come and go ALL night. You can't put a side slide out for more room either BUT it's free.

Early in the morning we snarfed up breakfast at the Denny's that was part of the truck stop and headed on west, changing to I-17 at Flagstaff and pushing through to Camp Verde for the night. Starting way back in Ohio I had begun to have trouble with my foot and ankle swelling badly. See the next blog for detail about this digression.

After dealing with this issue we headed on further south to Cave Creek, Arizona, and my oldest son Mark's home. He and his wife Natalie have a lovely house there with all sorts of ins and outs and nooks and crannies that are part of some large airy rooms. Even outside the house has several charming sitting areas. We got to watch the fire works from their house looking out over the valley.

This whole RV thing is mostly his fault. He has been promising me to come visit in Florida for years now but since he and his wife each have their own small businesses as well as trying to bring their home to be like they want it to be, they never seem to be able to get away long enough. So this year when he had to back off from coming to Florida I decided it was time we came to see him and that started the whole thing with the RV!

Dawdling in Denver

When last heard from Timmber Wolf was headed for Denver, Colorado, and Cherry Creek State Park. Some how in seven days and six nights we were there I managed only one picture which I'll get to in a few. We arrived a couple of days early on Saturday instead of Monday so first we checked to see if we could get into our reserved space early ... no such luck.

By then we were already getting frazzled just from trying to drive poor Timmber Wolf around in city traffic. We decided, okay, no room at Cherry Creek until Monday so we would get a hotel room and a rental car and rest, relax, and catch up on laundry before meeting up with my cousin Cyndi and her husband Scott at Cherry Creek. Sounds simple, right? Nope!!!

We first tried getting to the car rental location which proved to be not only tangled up in little streets but when we finally got Wolf in the entrance it looked like we might never get it out again. We gave up trying to get close to the car rental office and called ... no cars available anywhere!We gave up that part of the plan and got ourselves untangled from the area.

Realizing we were on a sizeable street calling itself Parker Road and having a clue that Parker was off to the southeast and away from this maze we were trapped in we headed out. Starving and irritated we called for a lunch break once we were in Parker, a growing part of the Denver suburbs, NOT a little town, and turned into a Village Inn, a name familiar to us from home.

Scrunch, screech, yikes! Something there at the back of Wolf or perhaps PoGoGo's carrier dragged itself across the pavement as we made the uphill turn towards the Village Inn! Inspection found no serious damage so we decided to try a different way out when we left and retreated inside for sustenance. We shut our tummies up and discussed our options over a meal that seemed just as good as at the Village Inn back home but the service was not as good.

The final decision was to head for a hotel nearby and get some R&R and clean clothes. We ended up at the Holiday Inn there in Parker and found the laundromat just doors away from the elevator. This Holiday Inn has a restaurant, Trappers Chop House, at the top with a great view towards Denver and since we were without a car and temporarily tired of managing Wolf in that kind of traffic, that's where we ate both nights. Good food, good service, great view!

Finally on Monday we rejoined our original plans and checked in at Cherry Creek State Park, a very nice place in the middle (it seems anyway) of metropolitan Denver. When Scott and Cyndi arrived, Scott took Geoff to pick up our rental car. We had no intentions whatsoever of trying to wander around Denver in the Wolf!

Fluff on the barbie?

That evening we actually got out our Coleman grill and fixed hot dogs for everybody. We got this grill back in 2004 when two 8-day spells of no electricity got us to prepare for that a bit. It's actually pretty nifty as it can be either on the table as we used it at Cherry Creek or it has its own stand.

One of the memorable things about Cherry Creek is the fluff that floats around from the cottonwood trees, landing everywhere even on our grill. We'd gotten PoGoGo off her carrier and I jumped on it and went with Cyndi while she walked their two dogs and got to see even more of the park and the lake. Okay, for the literal minded, no I did not jump on PoGoGo, I carefully seated myself, but that doesn't read nearly as well!

The rest of that day and Tuesday we spent settling in and visiting with out RV gurus, Scott and Cyndi. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons I visited with my cousin Steve, another of my "new" cousins and one whose life has had some similarities to my own, definitely a kindred spirit.While I was visiting Steve on Thursday, Scott and Geoff went off to the Cussler Museum with all its nifty cars, something Geoff has long wanted to do. A pleasant dinner with Scott and Cyndi ended a great stay at Cherry Creek as we then prepared to depart for the south on Friday, July 1st.

Bits and Pieces

Traveling like this there are always these little odds and ends of things happening that don't really fit in with the regular sequential blog post. Like the nice trucker and his son (presumably anyway) who waved and gestured at us letting us know we had some kind of problem so we pulled over and the tie downs and cover on PoGoGo on the carrier were coming loose and dragging on the highway. Thank you Mr. Unknown Trucker!

Then there is the automatic hand washer Geoff discovered in western Kansas. You stick your hands in and it wets them, soaps them, rinses them and then dries them or so the instructions say. It promises more than it delivers even when you do it three times!

Driving along we suddenly see a concrete field full of helicopters both Chinooks and regular looking ones which Geoff says were UH-60's and OH-58's ... regular ones as far as I can tell. Of course this is not so surprising when we see we are passing Ft Riley. It also explains the sudden appearance of apartment complexes in the middle of no where.

Some things go by too quickly to grab the camera for ... like the sudden area of leafless twisted trees scattered across the landscape for a short bit on the north side of I70 ... looked like a sudden wind storm or small tornado had struck maybe a thousand square yards of hillside.

A little ways farther on we found miles and miles of wind turbines planted in the prairie. Here and there, as you can see if you look closely at the image, there were old fashioned windmills. The juxtaposition was fascinating. There are hundreds and hundreds of turbines in these fields that are also used for whatever else, corn, wheat, or cattle grazing.

Only a little farther west from the wind turbines we found signs along the highway stating that if the lights on them were flashing all traffic had to get off the interstate. The only rationale for this we could think of was weather, either very strong winds that were dangerous or even threatened tornadoes or, even more likely, the blizzard conditions that occur out here in the prairies in winter.

Saw a few signs for the Quilt Cottage near Hays, Kansas, which made me think of stopping and getting a little something for my cousins Cyndi but then I realized since I have no interest in quilting myself I wouldn't have a clue what to get ... sorry Cyndi, just appreciate the thought I guess.

We finally made it out of Kansas (one of those "doesn't it ever end states") and ran into a nasty little rainstorm right where exits were few and far between. We finally got off and found a little RV park at the local Conoco station ... doesn't CW McCall have a song or two that mention the Conoco Station? The rain stopped almost as abruptly as it began and through the windshield we saw this lovely rainbow. It doesn't really show but it appeared much stronger than usual, probably because the skies were still fairly dark and stormy behind it but the sun was shining from behind us. This little park is the Marshall Ash Village Campground and has only two or three dozen pull through slots but they all have power, water, and sewer. It is right off the interstate, back behind the Conoco station which is also the campground office.

Our frig is still being cranky, infrequently showing the good old mysterious check light and being a bit erratic as to temperature so we'll have to keep an eye on it. Maybe I should assign that task to our resident kitty, stuffed and not needing any feeding or litter control. Next stop Denver!

Crossing the Breadbasket

Starting this while we still are in Ohio but we are leaving in the morning. Geoff had a great time both days he spent at the National Air Force Museum and of course he brought me a souvenir so a nice little plush eaglet joins the collection.

In case anyone thinks otherwise, there is actually a good bit one has to do on a daily or near daily basis living in an RV. Timmber Wolf has to have the gray and black water tanks emptied on a regular basis and of course the freshwater tank has to be filled. If you're hooked up to the park's water you're not using up your freshwater tank but any water use when you are not hooked up runs the tank down and that tank is even smaller than the 35 gallon black or gray tanks. When you are preparing for departure you make sure all your tanks are full or empty depending on what they are and you keep track of your propane tank level as well. Remember, the frig works off the propane when you are not plugged in to a 30 amp service!

So, to get ready for our leg of the trip crossing the midwest from Dayton to Denver, we'll empty our tanks tonight after dinner, fill up the freshwater tank and gather up all our trash. When we leave in the morning all we will have to do is unhook the water, sewer and electric lines, drop our trash off at the dumpster and turn left as we go out of the park, headed for I70. We've checked the propane which is about half full but this park doesn't have propane available so we'll make sure to fill the tank up at one of the travel plazas along our route.

Of course that doesn't even mention making sure everything on the inside is where it can't fly around as we go. The extra chair gets folded up and put between the bed and the wall and the the suitcase and laundry bag take the floor space on the other side of the bed. The big trash can gets folded up and secured in the shower with a few other things and all the small stuff gets put away in drawers and cabinets and then all the drawers and cabinets as well as the frig doors are checked to make sure they are properly shut.

The trip across the Midwest has been more or less uneventful, it is Friday morning now and we are in Columbia, Missouri. We had some issues with the tires taken care of yesterday afternoon - the stupid TireMinder we had installed at the beginning has been useless and made airing up the tires difficult for professionals and impossible for us. We went to Big O Tires here in Columbia and they removed the system, added extenders on the valve stems where needed and aired us up. If you ever have tire problems look for a Big O Tires!! They are all over the country. If they are anything like the one here you will be glad you did.

By the time we were done at Big O it was time to stop for the night so we are at Cottonwoods RV Park which was only a few miles away. Very nice here. Still having some refrigerator issues we are keeping an eye on as we head out towards Kansas and Colorado.